How airport retailers can increase foot traffic by building passenger pre-awareness

Do you know who'll be passing by your store front today?

No? Well, if you did know, what would you do differently? How could you build that person's awareness of your offer and encourage them to visit your store?

With StreamThru, you can publicise your offer to opted-in airline passengers who match your target profile. StreamThru sends up to 2 offers, direct to a passenger's mobile phone, 2 hours before departure - the perfect time for you to introduce yourself and prepare your target audience to spend.

You can increase passenger awareness and achieve impressive redemption rates with StreamThru, by following a few simple guidelines:

1) Target offers to maximise redemptions
With StreamThru, you can target passengers who will be in the airport at a specific time on a specific day, and you'll know a little about who the person is, why they're travelling, and where they're travelling to. This allows you to select who you make you offer to, to ensure your offer is relevant, so you can achieve a similar volume of redemptions to a traditional campaign while making far less offers.

2) Measure redemptions on a weekly basis
You need to collect weekly redemption data to get the most out of a StreamThru campaign. This is the secret of those retailers who've enjoyed the most success with the service to date.
If you know when an offer was redeemed and on which flight or route you can start to optimise your campaign. Over time, you can achieve a 2-3 fold increase in your redemption rate by comparing offers sent to redemptions and identifying the best times and days to make your offer on each route.

3) Test different offers and messages
If you're looking to drive more foot traffic into your store, the simplest type of offer is a straight discount or money-off offer. Retailers who've used this type of offer have seen strong results.
If you want to promote specific ranges or products, success depends on pinpoint targeting. You'll need to pick routes, times of the day, days of the week, reason for travel, gender, etc carefully and use weekly redemption data to monitor and fine-tune your offer.

You should experiment with different offer text to find the most successful offer message. You may want to include the airline name or the passenger's destination to increase perceived relevance.

4) Brief in-store staff
Finally, ensure you brief your in-store teams, so they know what offers you are running and how to process them at your point-of-sale.


Today, you can advertise on 2 white-label versions of StreamThru: easyJetText for easyJet passengers and Monarch Mobile for FlyMonarch.com passengers. If you're interested in advertising with us, contact us to request a rate card or demographic information.

Top 5 tips for airlines setting up a virtual travel concierge

For airlines looking to set-up a virtual travel concierge, to create a mobile phone initiated departure day dialogue with passengers, here are 5 tips to get you started:

1) Have a clear view of why you are doing this

Is your primary objective to enhance customer service or to unlock new ancillary revenue streams? Focus on this objective when prioritising content (information, advice and offers) for inclusion in your service.

2) Look at it from the passenger perspective

The more people who use your service, the more successful your project. So, you need compelling content to attract a large audience.

One way to ensure your service is compelling is by catering to the varying needs of your passenger segments (e..g business, short-break, skiing holiday, golfing holiday, etc), by offering each segment the most relevant subset of your content.

Note: if your primary goal is ancillary revenue generation, you still need sufficient informational content in your service to encourage passengers to sign-up.

3) Start small, think big

So, you know what content you want to deliver to attract passengers to your service, so you can achieve your objectives. The next step is to define the road-map that will help you achieve your vision, by breaking your project down into a number of phases.

For the first phase, you need to consider:

- Where will you try the service out (on certain routes / on all routes)?
- What content can you deliver that takes you toward your objective and has value to your passengers?
- Who will you offer the service to: all passengers or just a specific segment?
- Do you want to involve affiliates at this stage, offering them one last sales opportunity?
- Do you want to work with any of the airports you fly from (e.g. to charge their retailers to advertise to your passengers)?

4) Minimise the impact on your IT team

The ideal place to sign-up passengers for your service is when they book or check-in online. However, changing your reservation system is likely to place a major burden on your IT resources.

So, a simpler and quicker option is to use a feed of booking data (which should be straightforward for IT to produce) and invite passengers by email. This reduces the impact on your IT department, by allowing you to outsource most of the work. Then, once the service proves itself, there is a much stronger case to move the invite process onto your web-site.

5) Minimise the impact on your airport operations teams

If your primary objective is to increase departure day ancillary revenue, you need to ensure that service fulfilment (e.g. tactical upgrades, ground transportation, lounge access, security fast track) doesn't slow down your in-airport processes.

For your own services, use mobile technology to eliminate any impact on your in-airport teams. For example, if you offer priority boarding you could take payment via a mobile web-site and send the passenger a text message voucher to show at gate.


In summary:
- Offer useful content to make it an easy decision for passengers to sign-up
- Make the sign-up process as easy as possible without over-burdening IT
- Use mobile technology to simplify fulfillment

Location based SMS advertising service launching in Singapore

Cellular News reports that MobileOne (M1) of Singapore will soon launch a location-based SMS advertising service.

In one use of the service, M1 will allow retailers to profile who they want to advertise to by selecting against criteria in M1's subscriber database. When a target subscriber is close to the retailer's store, M1 will send them the retailer's offer by text message.

I've highlighted the M1 service here because it utilises similar concepts to a virtual travel concierge including the use of time, location, and context (read consumer profile) to get the right offer to the right person at the right time.

However, the objective of a virtual travel concierge is to provide opted-in passengers with relevant information and assistance. Ads are used to fund the service, so it's free to use for the consumer. With the M1 service, it appears that the ads are the service.

So, my question is: assuming that this is an opt-in service (sending ads without permission is a really bad idea), will M1's subscribers see enough value in retail discounts to take the trouble to opt-in and to agree to share their location?

Why mobile check-in is game changing for airlines

Last week IATA announced a set of standards to allow passengers to check-in from their mobile phone. Mobile check-in could be hugely significant and has the potential to trigger a step change in service levels.

REACH MORE OF YOUR PASSENGERS
If mobile check-in is implemented well and is successfully promoted, far more passengers will visit the 'manage my booking' section of the airline web-site to enter their mobile number. And, this creates a fabulous opportunity for airlines to invite passengers to engage in a pre-travel, mobile dialogue where the airline shares information and offers relevant ancillary services.

Today, most traditional carriers like BA, Lufthansa, Air France, American Airlines - the GDS airlines - only have a direct relationship with 50-60% of their passengers: those who book direct and member's of their loyalty schemes. By creating a compelling reason for travellers to share their contact details, mobile check-in enables airlines to connect with far more of their passengers ... and increase the reach of their ancillary services.

THE PASSENGER EXPERIENCE IN THE MOBILE WORLD
It's 2009, you booked your flight on your airline's web-site, entered your mobile number, and indicated that you'd like to check-in via your mobile phone.

24 hours before you travel the airline sends a text message to your mobile phone reminding you to check-in. There is a link in the message directing you to your personal mobile check-in page. You click the link and the airline mobile site displays details of your booking.

You choose to check-in now and answer a series of security questions. The airline sends a 2D barcode to your mobile phone. This is your boarding pass. No more paper.

Before you leave the mobile web-site, the airline informs you that you can revisit the site at any time on departure delay to see your own personal departure board, to get traffic updates, and to receive other useful information about your flight.

On departure day, before leaving home, you visit the airline's mobile site to check your flight status. The top of your screen shows your flight details. Your flight's on time. The bottom of the screen shows the latest traffic alerts, and a message from the airline stating that discounted upgrades are available to business class.

The upgrade sounds good. You click on the link and enter the last 4 digits of your credit card to pay. The airline confirms your upgrade. You've got a great deal and the airline has monetised its distressed inventory.

As you arrive at the airport, you check the mobile site again. You can see that their is a 10-minute queue at security. On the bottom of your screen is an offer to take the security-fast track. However, you have plenty of time before your flight so you decline the offer.

The bottom of your screen changes and is replaced by a targeted ad from an airport concession offering a special rate on currency conversion. It's a good offer and as you have plenty of time, you decide to change your money at the airport rather than using a cash machine at your destination.

Shortly before boarding, you receive a text message on your phone, reminding you to go to gate. The message also tells you that it's raining at your destination and suggests that you pre-book a taxi to beat the queues. You decide to take-up the taxi offer. You select the link in the message. This takes you back to the mobile web-site. You enter your destination address. The airline confirms availability and sends you a booking reference by text message.

MOBILE SHOULD BE ABOUT MORE THAN CHECK-IN
Airlines that extend their mobile projects beyond check-in to create a departure day dialogue can enhance customer service and grow ancillary revenues. These virtual concierge type services provide:

- Relevant information (e.g. flight status, traffic updates, weather)
- Assistance in the form of services that are relevant to the passenger and make money for the airline (e.g. upgrades, fast track through security, pre-booking taxis)
- Targeted offers from airport retailers and brands

Watch an integrated virtual travel concierge service in action

We recorded this 10 minute video last year to illustrate how a virtual travel concierge service can make a passenger's journey less stressful, and at the same time help airlines improve service levels and increase ancillary revenues.

What will you get from this video?

You'll follow a passenger on their journey from home to departure gate, and see how a virtual travel concierge can use knowledge of time available, location, and context to offer relevant information and assistance (e.g. if the passenger is running late).

You'll see how technology can enable airlines to engage in a low-cost dialogue with their passengers on departure day, primarily via the mobile phone, but also using smart information kiosks.

You'll see how a virtual concierge can adapt based on a passenger's context, so a lone business traveller will be offered a different experience from a family or group of leisure travellers.

Integration is the cornerstone of success

Some aspects of the virtual travel concierge shown in the video are available today, other elements are more futuristic. However, where service elements are available today they tend to be offered as stand-alone, "stove pipes".

The key takeaway from the video is that an integrated solution (e.g. pulling together flight information, traffic updates, valet parking, destination services) is worth far more than the sum of its parts. Those airlines who introduce an integrated, virtual travel concierge can connect with passengers long before they take their seat on the plane to enhance service levels and maximise departure day ancillary revenue.

What is a virtual travel concierge?

A virtual travel concierge is designed to make an airline passenger's journey less stressful. It's an opt-in service that provides passengers with information and advice from the moment they leave home until they board their flight (and possibly for their entire trip).

Construct a relevant dialgoue with passengers

By predicting a passenger's wants and needs the virtual concierge ensures all communication is timely and relevant. The passenger's wants and needs are determined by understanding their time available, location, and context.

• Time available is the amount of time left before the flight's estimated departure time.


• Location can be estimated from time available or captured more accurately using technology such as location based services (LBS). With LBS, passengers agree to share their mobile phone's cell location once or twice during their journey, this enables the virtual concierge to calculate an estimated time of arrival at the airport and determine if the passenger is late, on-time, or early. Using this information the virtual concierge can determine how best to assist the passenger.


• Context is other information known about the passenger and includes gender, reason for travel, and destination.

Use mobile as the primary means of communication

The virtual concierge creates a personalised dialogue with each passenger and the mobile phone is the ideal channel to conduct this conversation (although smart kiosks and digital media may be used in the terminal building).

The mobile web offers a graphical way of providing passenger's with their own personal departure board, backed up by other relevant information (e.g. traffic conditions, weather at their destination, etc) and allowing them to provide feedback for other passengers (e.g. sharing car park availability or security queue lengths).

However, adoption of mobile-web is still relatively low and with the high costs charged by mobile operators to overseas users, SMS (text messaging) offers a more practical means of reaching the largest audience. Note: It is likely that virtual concierge services will support both SMS and mobile formats to suit the preferences of individual passengers.

Decide what's in it for you

A virtual concierge is typically offered by an airline or travel management company (TMC). These organisations have a direct relationship with the passenger and are in the strongest position to offer virtual concierge type services.

If you work for an airline or TMC, you can probably see how a virtual concierge can enhance customer service levels and offer you a point of differentiation. However, to be successful the virtual concierge must at least pay its way and ideally have the potential to generate substantial revenues.

On the basis that people don't like paying for information, often the best way to fund the service is to use an ad-funded model and allow airport retailers, appropriate brand advertisers, and your affiliates to send a limited number of targeted messages to your passengers.

By using knowledge of time, location, and context you can also promote ancillary services to customers. This can include one last chance to promote existing ancillaries (e.g. a discounted upgrade to premium economy for passenger's who arrive early) and brand new services (e.g. offering a daily ski report to leisure passengers travelling with sports equipment to resort destinations)

Create a win-win for all stakeholders

When implemented well, a virtual concierge has the potential to work for all stakeholders, delivering:

• a better experience for passengers


• increased ancillary revenue for airlines and TMCs


• high conversion rates for advertisers (including airport retailers) through targeting

Setting-up a mobile campaign for airline passengers (Part V)

Following the recent launches of easyJetText and Monarch Mobile (both white-label versions of StreamThru) for easyJet and FlyMonarch.com passengers respectively, this is the fifth and final post discussing how advertisers (including airport retailers) can target passengers in the terminal building at the time when they're most receptive.

Earlier posts in this series discussed:

1) Defining your offer
2) Selecting your target audience and measuring the response rate to your campaign
3) Refining your campaign to increase conversion rates
4) Using fine-grained targeting, split testing, and serialisation to maximise redemptions

This post focuses on how none airport retailers can fulfill their offers.

OFFER FULFILLMENT FOR NON AIRPORT RETAILERS
With StreamThru, airport retailers simply include a discount code with their offer to enable fulfillment at the point of sale. For other advertisers, StreamThru enables a 2-way dialogue with passengers, by allowing passengers to respond to your offer by quoting a unique keyword.

HOW TO ENABLE FULFILLMENT
The process to create an offer and define how you want to fulfill it is:

1) Set-up your basic offer in the usual way, choosing the profile of passenger you would like to target and your offer message.

2) Choose a response keyword for your offer. Note: be sure to include appropriate instructions in your offer message (e.g. reply UPGRADE to accept offer).

3) Define your response message. This message is sent back to passengers who reply to your offer. If you want to direct the passenger to your mobile web-site for fulfillment, then this message can be a WAP push. Otherwise, the message should tell the user what will happen next (e.g. "Thank you. A customer service representative will call you shortly." or "Thank you. Please go to the airline ticket desk to confirm your upgrade and arrange payment.")

4) Define your response action. You need to tell StreamThru how you want to fulfill your offer. Options are:

- Manual. Use this where you've given fulfillment instructions in your response message (e.g. if you've directed them to a manned desk)

- WAP Push. Use this if you've directed the passenger to your own mobile web-site

- StreamThru queue. Use this is you want to fulfill the offer from your own service centre, but you don't want to undertake any integration with your existing system. In this case, we log the persons response to a queue which your service teams can view through a web-browser. From the web-browser your service team can indicate when the persons request is complete.

- Pass to existing system. Use this option if you want to pass data to your existing call centre or customer handling system. Note: please talk to our services team if you want to do this.

LIMITED AVAILABILITY OFFERS
StreamThru lets you limit the availability of an offer by time (e.g. hospitality lounge access) or by flight (e.g. upgrade to premium economy).

Defining a limited availability offer is similar to setting up an offer for fulfilment, but you also need to specify how many offers are available within a specified time period or for a specified flight. Note: for multiple flights, you can provide this information on a daily basis in a data file or through a web-service. Please talk to our services team for more information.

When a passenger accepts your offer StreamThru automatically keeps track of the number available, and stops sending out your offer when the supply is exhausted.

NEXT STEPS
To find out more about advertising with us, please email us to request more details.